Otto Malpense
"You don't get to win, Overlord" '' Otto Malpense in 'Zero Hour' '''Otto Malpense' is an Alpha stream student of H.I.V.E. As a baby he was abandoned outside an orphanage in London where he grew up and by thirteen was running of it. As a toddler he taught himself to read and had an unusual ability of being able to instantly memorize and recall information. He is a fast learner, he has a gift of reading very fast. When he was young he would go to the library and read many paperback books a day. History Higher Institue of Villainous Education Otto was abandoned outside St. Sebastian's orphanage after birth and lived there for 12 years, teaching himself and improving the orphanage for his and the residents' benefit and use. A letter from the government is sent to the orphanage saying it is about to be closed down by the Prime Minister, to save money. Otto hypnotizes the Prime Minister into insulting then mooning an audience. For this, he is taken to H.I.V.E. by Raven. There he meets Wing Fanchu who becomes his best friend as well as Laura Brand who enjoys to discuss computers and electronics with Otto, and Shelby Trinity (who is actually the world famous jewel thief "The Wraith"). They all team up to try and escape from H.I.V.E. Dr. Nero orders Raven, his assassin, to keep a close eye on Otto after he discovers that Number One himself (the leader of G.L.O.V.E.) had sponsored his admission to H.I.V.E. Otto's escape plan hinged on shutting down H.IV.E.mind with an EMP, then escaping in a submarine. However, H.I.V.E.mind convinces them to take him along making their plan easier. Upon arrival at the submarine pen they walk into a bare concrete cell where Dr. Nero reveals that the blueprints Otto saw were planted by him and that there was no submarine pen. He also reveals that he replaced their EMP with a non-functional replica. Their whole plan was destined for failure from the beginning, its purpose to teach them a lesson - You can't escape from H.I.V.E. The school is then attacked by Violet, a carnivorous plant created by Nigel Darkdoom. Otto manages to destroy it by modifying several sleeper guns to cause a rock fall on top of the plant's nerve cluster, saving the school. Otto seizes his chance to escape and takes Wing to the aircraft hangar, intending on escaping in a Shroud dropship . Wing, however, refuses to go, claiming the necklace he saw on Nero's neck was the other half of the one given to him by his mother. He refuses to go until he can uncover the mystery. Overlord Protocol In the Overlord Protocol he travels with Wing to Wing's fathers funeral. When the safehouse comes under attack Wing is shot by Cypher with a tranquiliser gun which shocks Otto due to Wing being his best friend. Otto and Raven manage to escape to a safe house in the dock area. They parachute from a Shroud which comes to rescue them as it's about to blow up and then land in Cypher's facility which is located in a crater below the ground. Otto manages to blow up the manufacturing line for Cypher's robot assasins that are being built to destroy HIVE then rescues Raven from one of the larger robots. They escape from the facility and return to HIVE, where the Contessa has taken over. Otto and Professor Pike switch H.I.V.E.mind off and on again to restore the A.I. to his original setting enabling him to function with human emotion. H.I.V.E.mind is allowed access to the whole internet and use it's processing power to hack into Cypher's control center and takes over one of the robots, using it to defeat Cypher. Escape Velocity Dr Nero has been captured by the Hostile Operative Prosecution Executive, or H.O.P.E., a brutal new agency. It is up to Otto to save him, but first he needs to escape from the Contessa, Dr Nero's new replacement. She sedates all the students, but Otto, Wing, Laura and Shelby are rescued from the Contessa by Raven. They escape on a Shroud, which Raven flies to Diabolus Darkdoom's submarine, the Megalodon. Otto uses his power to interface with computers to convince Darkdoom of the feasibility of Otto's plan to hack into the MI6 server, Deepcore. They do this and find where Nero is being held. Then, H.I.V.E.mind, in the shape of one of Cypher's assassin droids, is picked up by the Megalodon. He, Otto, Darkdoom, Laura, Shelby, Wing, Raven and H.I.V.E.mind go to save Nero. They manage to break Nero out and give him a thermoptic camoflague suit, but Sebastian Trent uses an EMP device to disable the suits' camoflaguing capabilities. He, Nero, Darkdoom and Wing are captured, but Otto's modifications to H.I.V.E.mind's thermoptic camoflague suit is successful, meaning he is still invisible. Number One is revealed as a traitor. Nero and Otto are blasted into space onto Number One's hideout, a satellite 300 miles above the earth. Number One is revealed to have been taken over by Overlord, a psychotic AI that was designed by G.L.O.V.E to serve, but turned on its masters. Overlord tries to take over Otto, but H.I.V.E.mind, who managed to stow away on the shuttle, attacks Overlord. He stops Overlord from taking over Otto, and persuades Otto to delete both him and Overlord while he still has control. He is deleted in the struggle, and both the AIs are presumed dead. Otto and Nero return to the Megalodon via the escape pod on Number One's satellite, where his friends greet him. Dreadnought The story starts with Otto and his friends introducing themselves to Lucy Dexter, a new girl at H.I.V.E., they all quickly become friends. Meanwhile, Otto and Laura are worried about their impending survival trip whilst Shelby and Wing are looking forward to it. Lucy asks if she can join their teams, which they all agree to. On the way to the training trip they stop off at the Dreadnought, Diabolous Darkdoom's new command vessel. Otto is immediately impressed with the scale of the massive airship. That's when trouble hits the fan! Rogue Otto is captured by Sebastian Trent and injected with Animus which makes him obey every order that is given to him, even to attack his friends. Later it is revealed that Overlord is still inside the computer implanted in his brain. Description Otto is short with white spiky hair and blue eyes (revealed to be an exact clone to Number One in Escape Velocity). Though he isn't exactly the fittest H.I.V.E. student or the most talented at martial arts he does have a few talents in that area, though with regard to self-defence he prefers using a quick nerve pinch. Personality Otto's main personality traits are his cunning, resourcefulness, independence and extreme intelligence. He was incredibly imaginative and calculative because of the powers bestowed upon him by Overlord. He was also exceptionally brave and not incapable of taking it upon himself to fight for his friends and family. Otto was extremely intelligent to the point of being bitingly witty, often making intelligent jokes in the face of his friends and enemies. He was also very lonely, especially after the events of Escape Velocity ''when he finds out that he in actuality has no true family. Skills *'Hacking''' - one of Otto's talents but his method differs to that of is friend Laura who is also a skilled hacker. Otto generally goes for a more brute-force method as opposed to Laura who uses a more delicate way. *'Memory' - Otto has a perfect photographic memory. He absorbs information like a sponge. This is revealed to be due to the fact he has a computer device implanted into his skull designed to host Overlord. *'Self-defense' - though not one of his talents he can still defend himself but mainly by means of a nerve pinch which isn't very effective in all situations. Wing starts to tutor him in self-defence in Dreadnought. In Rogue, while under the effects of Animus, Ghost trains Otto in many skills, including self-defense. Otto appears to retain these skills, as shown when he eliminated other students in a training exercise. Relationships *[http://hive.wikia.com/wiki/Wing Wing] - Otto and Wing share a room at HIVE and are best friends. Their relationship is cemented in the first book when Otto, after spending the entire time attempting to escape from H.I.V.E., stays back because Wing begged him to, as he needed to learn more about the second half of his amulet —which was in Dr. Nero's possession. *[http://hive.wikia.com/wiki/Laura Laura] - Otto and Laura are in love with each other. They care about each other very much, and are sometimes teased by Shelby for always "geeking off." The two of them end up making out in the library in Deadlock, when Laura tells Otto that she's decided to stay at H.I.V.E. *[http://hive.wikia.com/wiki/Lucy_Dexter Lucy] - Otto and Lucy have a talk in Zero Hour and end up kissing. However, Lucy later dies. *[http://hive.wikia.com/wiki/Shelby_Trinity Shelby] - Otto meets Shelby during orientation, around the same time as Laura. *Franz- Otto became friends with Franz in the first book. *'Nigel' - Otto is good friends with Nigel Darkdoom. *'Tom and Penny' - Otto is an old friend of Tom and Penny. *'Block and Tackle' - Otto becomes enemies of Block and Tackle after he takes their table on his first day and renders one of them unconscious via a nerve pinch. *[http://hive.wikia.com/wiki/Raven 'Raven ']- Otto has gone on many missions with Raven. Raven was also the one who origianlly recruited him to HIVE.